Shocking detail in case of cheerleader accused of murder: ‘I tried to cremate the baby’

A cheerleader accused of murdering her baby allegedly told police she tried to cremate the child.

Brooke Skylar Richardson, 20, of Ohio, is accused of aggravated murder and four other felonies in the 2017 birth and death of her baby girl, whose skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave in her backyard.

Richardson faces life in prison if convicted. Her trial could last up to three weeks.

The court was read a transcript of a police interview Richardson had in 2017 on Friday local time, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

“I tried to cremate the baby,” she said, according to the transcript.

According to the transcript read in court, Richardson also told police the baby wasn’t alive and she “never meant to hurt her”.

Her lawyers told the court on Wednesday the baby might have been stillborn and if that’s the case she can’t be convicted of murder.

Prosecutors have argued Richardson murdered her baby, burned the child and then buried her.

Steve Knippen, an assistant prosecutor, told Warren County jurors that Richardson tried to commit “the perfect crime,” killing an unwanted baby and trying to hide any sign that the child ever existed so she could go back to her “perfect life”.

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Mr Knippen repeatedly displayed text messages and photos in which Richardson bragged about how good her body looked right after the baby was gone.

She texted such a message to her mother just hours after she “murdered a baby she didn’t want and never intended to keep,” Mr Knippen said.

He said she was “pregnant by a boy that she wanted nothing to do with.”

Lawyer Charles M. Rittgers rejected prosecution claims that she confessed, saying it was a false confession that police goaded her into, pressing her to say the baby was born alive and she burned it.

An expert later admitted she was wrong after initially opining that there was evidence of burning on the baby’s bones, Mr Rittgers said, but prosecutors “didn’t hit a ‘reset’ button” and admit they had made a mistake.

Mr Rittgers called the case “a rush to judgment”.

He added his client gave details that fit a stillbirth: the child’s skin was white, not a healthy pink, and the infant was detached from the umbilical cord and placenta.

The case will return to court on Tuesday.

With The Associated Press

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